Is Model UN Just LARPing?

Have you ever wanted to lead a committee meeting on drone laws in Pakistan? Or discuss the impact of capital punishment in the Marvel Universe? Probably not. But the kids of the Florida State Model United Nations team are ranked top ten in the nation for precisely that. Apparently, our state school breeds some talented political Live-Action Role-players. The Eggplant FSU got the rare opportunity to talk to these faux-political powerhouses during the brief moment when they weren’t streaming CNN off their phones.

“I’ve been doing MUN for 3 years now and absolutely nothing beats the rush of taking your team to victory by committing hypothetical war crimes,” said chair of mystical crises Jared Bloom. “It’s a lot of hard work. We research the topic for days and then are held in the basement of Bellamy for a week straight where we are only fed stale pieces of bread and Four Loko. It’s essentially a monthly recreation of the Stanford Prison Experiment but it all pays off when we get drunk and I get at least one of the hotties on the team to kiss me on the cheek after my 4th rejection of the night.”

“It’s just another thing to add to my resume along with being a writer for HerCampus, senator in Student Government, and interning for Nancy Pelosi,” explained Casey Short, director of the Military Offense Committee and certified boss babe. “Honestly, the power I feel when I manage to secretly ambush one of my allies for political gain isn’t even comparable to any sex I’ve ever had. That, coupled with the 20 guys on the team that would step in front of a truck if I looked at them the right way is why I have to wear a pad during conferences even on my off days. It’s like the Acid Rain crisis in Germany down there.”

Model UN is a complex and high-stakes game of Risk and it’s not an easy game to play. Strategies of deceit, weaponization, and most importantly, acting, are all needed if you want to make it on one of the best teams in the nation for playing dress-up. Every time you lose out on a job, just know that the person that got it deserved it more because of their many hours of political improv. So, while we may have uncovered MUN’s dirty little secret of professional LARPing, the question of what exactly these nerds have been doing on their silly little field trips still remains. The truth? Nothing MUNch.